Tag Archives: wisdom

The one that had preceded Nina suffered from a permanent tension of his vocal cords. He had picked me up at the Santa Monica Library — a house of glass and metal, and the place of rest for many a homeless in the City where no one could ever find a home. Not really. Sure, one had a house, or a place. A joint. A roommate situation. But to be at home — one had to be willing to belong.

“Hmm. That’s an interesting pullover you’re wearing,” said the young creature, at the Library, smug with studied confidence. Not natural at all.

I granted him a single glance-over: An overachiever, to a tee. Something about him lacked the swagger of those whose choices and whims were endorsed by family’s name or a bank account (which ever one had more clout). Yes, still: He tried. Immediately, I knew: He, who poured this much attention into his subject — who reached too far and tried too hard, straining beyond the plasticity of his compassion (which would already be magnificently excessive), he who choked with forced praise — would rarely be comfortable in silence. Not in the mood for busy talk, I changed the subject whilst looking for an exit:

“What are you reading, mate?” I threw over my shoulder. The echo played a round of ping-pong with my sounds between the glass walls of the reading room. Ate, ate, ate. To which, a studying nerd deflated his lungs, somewhere in the corner:

“SHHHHHH!”

Neither looking back at the distressed prisoner of knowledge nor wanting to look ahead at this new lingering aggressor against silence, I focused on the hardbound books with which he had been shielding himself, with brown, hairless arms. The fading edges of their cloth binding would smell of mold at the spine, and then of dehydration from the air and sun; overexposure to the oil of human fingers and the salt of readers’ tears, surprised to have their empathy awoken by someone’s words: Still alive, that thing? Because the heart was usually the last one to give up. And then, the lungs: SHHHHHH.

The aged tomes in the man-child’s arms promised to titillate my ear more than his words. Words, words.

“What am I reading?! Oh. Um. Nothing…” (Oh, c’mon! The nerd in the corner was turning red, by now, from the justified resentment at being invisible to us, as he had been his whole life.) “Well. Oscar Wilde and Evelyn Waugh, actually.” The man-child finally spat out, then hesitated, gave this cords another straining pull: “I know! Not butch enough — for a straight male!” He nearly choked there! Words, words, word.

Oh. One of those: Simultaneously eager and tormented! The one to flaunt his politics out loud, just so that the others didn’t get the wrong idea. Because whatever happened in beds he visited (even if out of the other lover’s loneliness or boredom) would be the reason for his later torment. The guilt, the loathing. The other obstacles to self-esteem. And he would wear them like a frilly scarf from Urban Outfitters, meant to accent things — to draw attention, and perhaps make him more “interesting” — but not to serve the very original function. The it-ness of the thing was lost.

With me, the man-child, worked his words (words, words) to become liked enough. And after one eve of heavy breathing and pulsating blood flow, perhaps, he would be asked to stay. I questioned, though, if he knew exactly what he wanted: sex — or its statistic? The mere happening of it? Sex was a fact of his hormonal balance; and if he could help ignore it, he would move out of his body entirely and occupy his head. But for right now, the boy still had to get some, however accidentally.

The love you take — is equal…

He took, he claimed. And if he didn’t, he would storm out of sentences with scorn of having to sublimate his desires, yet again. Alas, the world was so unfair.

“But you!” Against the walls, he kept thumping the words like racket balls. The poor boy was trying! “You! — must be so erudite!”

“SHHHHHH!”

“Or really?” I hissed, considering the possibility of the nerd’s heart attack for which I was not willing to bear the responsibility. At least, not on a Monday night. “Is it the pullover?” I asked and pushed him out of the way. Over, over, over.

The man-child lingered, then began to laugh with that obnoxious howl meant to draw attention. Again, too much. Too hard. So insincere! Petrified! SHHH! SHHHHHH…

“He sounds messy!” diagnosed Taisha, while she herself was negotiating the rush hour traffic. It was always rush hour, somewhere, in this City. Her windows rolled down — I could hear the screech of others’ breaks in the lazy heat of another smoggy afternoon. If one survived the mind-numbing dissatisfaction at having to just sit there — while getting nowhere and watching life slip out thorough the vents of fans — half of LA would give up on the idea of stepping out again, that night.

“I think I’m coming down with something.”

“…It’s food poisoning, I think.”

Like nowhere else, here, people were prone to canceling plans. To giving-up.

“I’m waiting for the cable guy. It sucks!”

“My cat is sick.”

Each night, the people landed in their private spaces, shared with other people or their own delusions. They heated up some frozen options from Trader Joe’s and locked their doors agains the City.

I listened to the life force of LA: Still plentiful, it breezed through all four open windows of Taisha’s Prius. This place — a forty four mile long conveyer belt that moved things along, living or inanimate (it moved lives along); and if one could not keep up, the weight of failure would remain under one’s breath. The City of Lost Angels. The City of Lost Hearts.

“Now listen! Don’t do ANYTHING! until I see you!” Taisha ordered me; and although my heart maintained its pace, it winced at little, subjected to her care. “Don’t sleep with him! You’re dangerously close to some stupid choices, right about now!” (She was referring to the draught of my sexuality. When I blew out the thirty candles of my birthday cake, the promiscuity that granted me some fame, was also put out, surprisingly and seemingly for good. Into that space, I started cramming wisdom.)

“I am one lucky bastard — to have you love me like you do,” I responded, singing my words halfway through the sentence.

Oh, how she fought it! My dear Tai! All business and busyness, the girl refused to slow down for sentimentality’s sake: “Oh, you, white people! Ya’ll get so mushy ‘round love. My people, back in Kenya…”

“Ah, jeez! Alright!” I interrupted, misty-eyed. “I’ll talk to you.”

Taisha would be talking, still, like “peas and carrots” in the mouths of actors. But I could hear her smile break through. Humanity still happened here, amidst perpetual exhaust and one’s exhausted dreams. Somewhere along the stretched-out, mellow land attacked by bottom-feeders and the self-diluted who knew not why exactly they made a run for here, but mostly headed West in a trajectory that had been paved by others — it happened. Some stayed, too tired or too broken of hearts. And they comprised my City.

“Everyone seems so shallow here!” the man-child (he would be from Connecticut, but of course!) was overlooking the crawling traffic, like a Hamlet in his soliloquy. And from the upstairs patio table we’d taken while splitting a bottle of ginger ale (for which I’d paid), he seemed to be in perfect lighting. The row of yellow street lights had suddenly come on above his head. The dispersed taillight red reflected on his face from the West-bound traffic. The boy was slowly sipping — on my drink.

“Big spender!” I could already hear the voice of my Kenyan Confucius. “RUN! Run while you can!”

“But YOU! You seem like you’re here by accident!” His terrorism by kindness did have one thing going for it, called lucky timing.

“I am so lonely,” I wanted to let out, right underneath the yellow light now holding conferences of moths and fruit flies. At a table nearby, a girl blogger clacked away on her snow-white Mac, while glancing at us from underneath her Bettie Page bangs. What does it feel like — to be written?

“What if I slept with him?” I thought. It’s better to have loved…

Except that: I had turned thirty. And I could no longer take for granted the ghosts of previous lovers that crowded a bedroom during a seemingly inconsequential act. A Greek Chorus of the Previously Departed. And then, the heart of one participant, at least, would wake up — with yearning or having to remember its wrong-doings or when the wrong was done to it — and things turned messy. So, sex was never simple; especially for this one, who now tipped the last drops of my ginger ale into his glass.

“You wanna drink?” Familiarity had started working on my sentences already, like cancer in my marrow. Still, IT — could have happened, still. IT would have started with a shared drink. “A beer, or something?” I tensed my body to get up.

“Nah, thanks. I’m in AA.”

I looked at him: His eyes began to droop like a basset hound’s: Just ask me — of my suffering. The frilly Urban Outfitters scarf picked up against the gust of wind. My chair scraped away from him — and from the table now mounted by issues of his angst. My entertained desire shriveled.

Yet still — I stayed!

When he and I made loops around the neighborhood, dumbfounding the drivers at each intersection with our pedestrian presence. Through windshields, I would find their eyes — like fish in an aquarium, unable to blink — and they calculated the time they had to make the light without plastering our bodies with their wheels. Preferably. The man-child let me lead the way. A winner!

And still — I stayed.

I stayed when I had climbed onto a stone fence, and now even to his height I waited for the lean-in. The boy hung back, decapitating his hands at his wrists by sticking them into his pant pockets. His words continued to pour out: His praise came up along my trachea, with bubbles of that shared ginger ale, which now tasted of rejected stomach acid.

But still. I stayed. I waited. Because sometimes, to those who wait — life grants, well, nothing. And nothing, sometimes, seemed to be the choice of greater courage.

“She never rains. The poor girl, She’s all cried out.”

Nina’s hair, unless right after the shower, shot out of her head in spirals of prayer. Of course, she hated it. A black woman’s hair: Don’t touch it, unless you’re done living altogether. The glory of it was slightly confused by auburn shades inherited from Nina’s Irish mother. And underneath that mane — sometimes set afire by the sun’s high zenith — and right below her smooth forehead, two eye, of furious green, devoured the words that she had been reading to me from headstones.

“Which one is that?” I asked and walked to her side of a burgundy granite, with jagged edges, still shiny like a mirror. It had to have been a pretty recent death.

She wrapped herself further into her own arms and chuckled, “No one, silly. I just said that. About this City.” Like an enamored shadow, I hung behind her. “This would be the perfect time for rain. Except that She — is all dried out, you see?” The furious green slid up my face. “But She — is really something, isn’t She?”

It was indeed refreshing, for a change, to be with a woman so free from posing. Of course, I’d witnessed moments of vanity on her before: When her pear-shaped backside lingered at the boudoir before she’d finally slip in between the covers and curve around me. And all the open spaces — she occupied by flooding.

I wondered if she knew the better angles of herself. Because I saw them all. When in an unlikely moment of worrying about my long-term memory’s lapse, I whipped out my phone and aimed its camera at Nina’s regal profile, she must’ve been aware that her beauty was beyond anything mundane. For I had studied many a pretty girls before, the ones with the self-esteem of those who have never been denied much. But Nina’s beauty wrote new rules, of something warm and living. It came from occupying her skin with no objections to its shape of color; from delicate sensibility and softness, like the wisp of a hair across a lover’s face. But there was also: strength. And heritage. And underneath my touch, she moved.

Moreover: If you want to know the very gist of me, the ethics upon which I stand and the beliefs with which I measure the world; if you want to predict the disappointments of my spirit when others don’t live up to the their goodness (and if you wish to summon my own aspirations to be only good); if you desire to see the shadows of my mistakes and flaws that cost me so much time and heartbreak — the stories in my father’s eyes will tell all.

(His eyes are blue and honest. The man lacks all capacity to tell a lie. And if ever he discovers himself in the unsettling situation of having let somebody down — never due to his shortcomings but only circumstances — his hand comes up to rub the ridge above his eyebrows; sometimes, his chin. He hates to be the cause of pain.)

All other loves of mine — are replicas, and I have spent half of my lifetime searching for the exceptional kindness with which my father treats the world. In the beginning, I was meant to fail: It takes a while to not take for granted the components of our parents’ characters which, with our own older years, begin to make us proud. Identity compiles its layers with our exposure to the world; but the very roots of our goodness can only lead to those who gave us life and hopefully our first opinions of it. Their goodness — is our very, and most important, homecoming. And if I had to choose my only prayer for this world, I’d ask for every prodigal child to find their way back home, through forgiveness, wherein lies the discovery of what was missing all along. It always lies in our parents’ souls.

(There are two folds, now permanent, at the medial edge of father’s eyebrows. In those, he carries his concerns for those lives that he has vowed to protect. In them, I see the weight of manhood, his duty and his sacrifice. The endless rays of lines at the outer edges of my father’s eyes. How easily they bring him back to lightness! My father lives in constant readiness to bond over the common human goodness and delight. He’d rather smile, for life, and not brace himself to witness his child’s or the children of others’ pain. He’d rather give and then dwell in that specific peacefulness that happens after generosity — and not be helpless at relieving someone of their deprivation.)

The whole of lifetime, I can recall the never failing access to my gratitude. In childhood, I couldn’t name it yet: I never needed any reasons or explanations for the lightness of those days. My adolescent years posed a question about the qualities that made me differ from my contemporaries; and when I watched my friends make their choices, while inheriting the patterns of their parents, I started wondering about the source of what made me lighter on my feet and ready for adventure. I was different, but what was really the cause of it?

(My father lives in readiness to be childlike. When new things capture his imagination, I can foresee the eyes of my son, when he would be continuously thrilled by the world. Dad frowns a bit when he attempts to comprehend new things, but never in a burdened way: So intently he tries to comprehend the world, he thinks hard and quickly to get to the very main point of every new event and person, the central apparatus of every previously unknown bit of technology and invention. And then, he speaks, while studying your face for signs of recognition. To honor others with his complete understanding — is crucially important to that man!)

It would be gratitude, as I would name it later: The main quality of my father’s character that made me — that made us — different from others. The privilege of life never escaped my self-awareness. Just breathing seemed to be enough.

In the beginning years of my adulthood, which had to strike our family quite prematurely, I started aching on behalf of seemingly the whole world: I wished for human dignity. We needn’t much in order to survive, but to survive with dignity — was what I wished upon myself and everyone I loved (and by my father’s fashion — I LOVED the world and wished it well!). And then, when life would grant me its adventures, however tiny or grandiose, the force of gratitude would make me weep. Then, I would rest in my humility and try to pay it forward, to others.

(No bigger thrill my father knows in life than to give gifts. They aren’t always luxurious, but specific. They come from the erudite knowledge of his every beloved that my father gains through life. Sometimes, all it takes is someone’s equal curiosity toward a piece of beauty — and this magnificent man (my father!) would do anything to capture just a token of it and give it as a gift. He looks at someone’s eyes when they are moved by beauty, and in his own, I see approval and the highest degree of pleasure.

And I have yet to know another person who accepts his gifts more humbly than my father; because in life, IT ALL MATTERS. No detail must be taken for granted and no reward can be expected. So, when kindness is returned to my father by others, he is seemingly surprised. But then, he glows at the fact that all along, he had been right, about the world: That everyone is good!)

And that’s the mark that father leaves upon the world. He never chose a life with an ambition to matter, but to commit specific acts of goodness — is his only objective. With time that has been captured in my father’s photographs, I see his own surrender to the chaos and sometimes tragic randomness of life. And so, to counteract it, he long ago chose to be good.

You, silly. It’s you — but from a decade ago. A memory of you reiterated by someone else (who’s always claimed to have his own interpretation of you). The evidence from the past that you weren’t too proud of, to begin with.

Here it is, you! The ghost of you, desperately trying to keep your head above the water, with no parental guidance or a homeland to which you could go back. (Not that you’d want to, though: Those bridges have been burnt, their ashes — buried with your hind legs.)

You, talking yourself out of an encyclopedia of uncertainties and doubts, every morning; wishing to be someone else — anyone but you! — then blackmailing your gods for any type of a new delusion to lap up.

You, clutching onto love — any love, how ever selfish or unworthy — just so that you could feel an occasional liberation from the drudgery of life.

This is exactly why I’ve learned to not stay in close contact with my exes: I rarely enjoy a stroll down the memory lane. Shoot, I don’t even like a drive by through that lane’s neighborhood, while going at ninety miles an hour.

Because I’d rather think of it this way:

“It happened, thank you very much. But I don’t ever want for it to happen — again. I myself — don’t want to happen. I repeat: NEVER again.”

But ‘tis the season; and somehow, despite my good behavior this year, a single message from a former love has managed to slip in — and it appeared on my screen. He has been reading my fiction, he says, and has a few objections to it. And could he, he wonders, tell his story: He wants to contribute. He, as before, has his own interpretation he’d like to share.

And could I, he says, write about something else: Like good memories? Remember those? Because what he remembers of you — is sometimes good. So, he, he says, would like to see you in that light.

“‘You’? ‘You’ who? ‘You’ — me?”

Me don’t have much to brag about, in my past. Me is humbly grateful for her former opportunities, but the opportunities of mine now — are so much better!

And me has fucked-up plenty. (Don’t YOU remember? You — were there.) But then again, isn’t what one’s youth is for: To live and learn? Well. Me — has done plenty of that. And as for the suggested good memories, if it’s up to me (‘cause it is MY fucking fiction, after all!) — me would much rather remember the mistakes, just so that me don’t ever repeat them again.

Normally, in the vacuum of my blissful isolation from my exes, I do sometimes think of me — but now. The current me: The one that has survived. The one with enough intelligence and humility to summon her fuck-ups and to make something out of them (like knowing better than to repeat them).

And so, behold: A better me.

A kinder and more mellow me. The me who knows how to get a grip, when to summon her patience; and also the me who knows how to let go. Me who allows for her time to have its natural flow, who knows how to free fall into the tumbling, passing, speeding minutes of her life with gratitude and ease.

The ME who’s finally proud to be — her: The HER who knows how to live.

Like any woman that I’ve known, in my life, I wonder about aging. What will I look like, after the decline begins? Will I be kind enough to not compete with youth? Will I be loved enough to never fear the loss of tautness of my skin or breasts?

And when occasionally I panic at the discovery of a gray hair or a previously unwitnessed wrinkle, I bicker at my own reflection and I begin to research remedies. Nothing too invasive, but something with a bit more help.

But NEVER — I repeat: no, never! — do I, for a second, wish to be the younger me, again. It happened already — I happened — thank you very much. But I am good with never happening again.

I’d much rather want to be her: The current me. The one who’s loved, respected and adored and who knows how to accept it, for a change. The one who gives her kindness, but only until she starts losing the sight of herself. And then, she’s smart enough to stop.

She who refuses to give up her younger self’s beliefs in the general goodness of people, still; but who is too wise to not give up on those who do not know how to be good to themselves.

They said their goodbyes over two cups of soup, in a narrow joint with floors filthy from the slush just outside the door. Instead of a doormat, the management had placed down sheets of cardboard. Not a pretty picture, but it was all somehow very… New York.

And the lines of their dialogue did not resemble any tragic love affair from the best of the world’s cinema. He was civil but not tender, just maintaining a casual conversation. It had been a chronic anxiety, for her, when others relied on the arrival of tomorrow. Since childhood, she was silly with her goodbyes, always making room for them. Just like she did that day: Insisting on sitting down for it, instead of aimlessly walking through the City that had seen way too many unhappy endings prior to theirs.

She had made a mistake of ordering something that sounded the most exotic, with yellow curry; but then she discovered ground chicken in it. She was a vegetarian. To save herself from the embarrassment — in front of him and the tired black woman working the line alone, during the rush of lunch hour — she pretended to eat around the white meat. Until he noticed it.

“You’ve gotta order something else!” he scoffed; and for the duration of their entire pathetic meal, which they’ve spent fully clothed, in their coats and he — in his hat, her mistake would be enough of a diversion from what was actually happening: He was leaving, like so many before him; looking for a graceful exit that no longer existed due to his cowardly procrastination.

“Oh, c’mon!” he kept trying to make her the pun of the joke. “You can’t just eat around the meat! You can’t keep doing… this thing that you do!”

Bingo!

A few months into the affair, he had begun reminding her of someone else. That day — on the repeatedly reiterated subject that suddenly so obviously annoyed him — she finally tracked it down: Someone else had happened to her, in this same City, nearly a decade ago. Someone else who had no intention of sticking around; who often got shamed of her in public — and in front off much chicer dressed young women, with whom he had to think he had a chance. Someone else who had hidden her from his family and friends, who pleaded for only private getaways; who gave her slivers of his time — if any — during the holidays. Someone else who’d made a good use of her youth and sex, but had no courage to end it.

Even back then, in her much younger — less jaded, more innocent — self, she felt something was akimbo. Not right. The intuition kept scratching on the ventricles of her heart. In those days, she wouldn’t call it that: Intuition. Not yet. She needed a few more disastrous repetitions and embarrassing endings — to become more in tune with her self-respect. But the sensation was already there: Something wasn’t right. By the universality of her gender, she knew: Not right.

Now, a decade older, she still couldn’t name it: that feeling of not being enough. Too poor, too orphaned; with not enough stock or family inheritance to her name. Pretty enough and selfless in bed — that was the only thing that made them last. But the awareness of that same feeling was beginning to land in the corners of her eyes with a melancholic recognition of the pattern: He — was leaving. Maybe not that day, and maybe not even after they would reunite at home, on the other coast. But eventually.

This trip had to end abruptly for him. He had to go. Maybe it could last a little longer: She could walk him to his town car. They could grab another drink at their hotel’s bar. But he would finish his cup of soup — and hers, with the chicken — then hug her outside the door, in the snow, among the locals who, just like their City, had grown indifferent to the sight of all endings. He would be clumsy, as that earlier someone else, trying to avoid meeting her eyes. Their height difference made it impossible though, so he would scurry off as soon as he couldn’t help but notice her face: Heartbroken.

“That’s right, fucker!” she thought of him meanly for the first time. “You will NEVER forget me!”

What else could she do to repair herself, in that moment — but to gloat in the peacefulness of her lack of guilt? She had been good, to this someone and the other one. To so many others, she had been good, or generous at least. It could’ve all been simplified in their honest communication of intentions. Instead, they had chosen to drag her along, while offering just enough attention but never too much of it. They procrastinated past the moment when she would fall in love; they scurry off into the landscapes of her Cities.

And the bloody New York — was still there. Like a background action shot, fabricated meticulously by a film crew, it continued to happen: with the never ending honking of cabs and beeping of closing and opening bus doors; with people coming and going — toward their dreams, careers and sex; or running away from love. Nowhere else did it smell or sound like this. And even with the strange sensation of something ending — something snapping and curling up to catch a breath — she knew she was still glorious: Because she loved it — all of it — so much!

“Never, never, never! You will NEVER forget me!” the City was humming along with her. And she didn’t even care about the already vague memory of someone leaving her behind, in it.

I saw him nearing the intersection, about half a block away, on foot. At first, I watched him pass my car, along the pavement: An ordinary man, like so many others.

His hair and beard were completely white (and I’ve always found it impossible not to trust white-haired people, for they seemed so much wiser than others). So, immediately, I thought of him not as much as handsome but somehow dignified; trust-worthy. Surely, I thought, he knew something I didn’t.

He wore a pair of well-ironed black slacks and a white dress shirt, unbuttoned at its collar. A pair of polished, laced-up shoes and a yellow manila envelope under his armpit: But of course! He had to be an important somebody!

Maybe he was someone’s tax accountant, I thought. Or, a divorce attorney walking over the final papers to a drained, tragic face of some recently single mother.

The fact that he was passing a gas station specifically for cop cars helped my fantasy, too. I had just noticed it the other day: What looked like a parking lot behind a film production building was filled with the killer whales of LAPD being served by a single, rusty gas pump. I didn’t know that the same people granting us our justice also had to pump their own gas. It made sense, of course; but my initial assumption that they were tended to, by someone else, made the idea of my world slightly better. Or, more just.

(That’s when I looked away: I was waiting for the traffic light to change. It hadn’t yet.)

I had just passed that one crowded intersection where every LA egomaniac insisted on wedging in the giant ass of his unnecessary Hummer, thinking that the yellow light would last forever — just for him! Instead, he would get stuck there, right in the middle of the mess, blocking the rest of us with an awkward tilt of his giant ass. Oftentimes, driven to the ends of our nerves by all the heat and strife already, we flip out, honk and scream at him, with lashing words and foaming saliva. Aha: Another day, in LA.

My own rage is so powerful, at times, it scares me:

What if I don’t manage to come back to the saner side again? What if I go way too far?

They had just erected a significant palace of yoga, precisely at that one intersection, where most of us are ready to lose our minds. (And those people granting us our justice: Why aren’t they granting it at that specific spot in the city?!)

On the other side of the street sits an ill-used parking lot, permanently fenced in by a giant net. Its neon orange sign reads “FENCES”. No shit! There is never enough parking in this city, and there is never enough space. Or, there is too much space — and not enough humanity.

But then, again, no one ever promised this city would all make any sense. No one ever promised for it — to be just.

And maybe, that is why it’s always so much harder to come back here, every time: Because we tread at the very end of our nerves, due to all the heat and strife, and some of us go way too far.

The white-haired man was walking slowly; and that was somewhat unusual, of course. But then again, he was nearing that one police station in Hollywood, where quite a few of my acquainted restless souls have spent a night or two, after losing their minds a little. Maybe he was someone’s DUI lawyer; or perhaps, he was delivering someone else’s bail. As he neared the pedestrian walkway, with the quickly expiring countdown on the other side, he began to squint his eyes: Eleven, ten, nine…

(And did I mention he was wearing glasses, with an elegant metallic rim? Yep: Definitely, an important somebody!)

“Ohhh… Ohhh, nooo!” he suddenly began to cry, quietly, almost under his breath. He wound up each word in a register unsuitable for a dignified, white-haired man, like him.

He stepped out onto the road and began to cross. Seven, six, five… He crossed right in front of my windshield.

“Ohhh, nooo!” He squinted again. “They took my car… Oh!”

I looked in the direction of his grief. The curbs in front of that one police station, in Hollywood, were completely empty. It was that time of the day when the rules demanded for us to give each other more space.

“They took my car…” The white-haired man continued, and in the way he stumbled onto the pavement at the end of his walkway, I thought he was way too close to collapsing on his feet: Way too close to his insanity — as he had gone way too far.

“I can’t take this — anymore…” he wept.

It separated inside of me and dropped — some dark feeling that comes from suspecting that nothing in the world had promised to be just. And that departure of my own hope scared me: What’s life — without hope?

Someone honked behind me: The light had changed, and I had to give them way. I had to give them enough space to pass into the lives that stressed them out ahead.

I look up: The badass to take me flying is heading toward us, with an already extended arm for a handshake. He is so much larger than me.

I make my move, grinning:

“I’m Vera!” I say.

I feel calm and yet impatient: I cannot wait to leap out into the sky.

“Sean,” he says. What a decent name, on a decent man!

Then, he adds: “And for the next hour, I’m going to be — your bodyguard.”

“I like that!” I say, still grinning. Apparently, for the next hour, I am going to speak only with exclamations.

Sean gives me his forearm. I grab it, and for the first time in the history of my womanhood — I actually mean it. I let him lead the way.

On the sidelines, I can see the other instructors readjusting the gear on their students. But mine is much cooler than that: He doesn’t fuss. He’s not even wearing his own gear yet. Instead, he starts talking to me, calmly, about today’s “exceptional” skies.

“You can see everything much clearer, from up there,” he says.

I assume it’s metaphor for something: A life of wisdom, of persevering past the suffering and finally landing into humility, which often takes the very place — of grace.

It must also be a metaphor for luck. And then I think it’s a good sign that in his name, there is an equal number of letters as in mine — and we share the same vowels.

We talk. Where did I come from? How did he land here?

“I used to be afraid of heights,” he tells me. “Until my family gave me a skydiving lesson, as a Christmas present.”

And this, I assume, must be a metaphor for something, as well: For human courage and the choice to defeat one’s limitations.

“THE SKY IS THE LIMIT,” says the sign behind Sean’s back in the alcove where we’ve walked off to pick up his equipment.

And this! This too — must be a metaphor. A good sign.

And I already know that I shall continue rewinding this day in my memory every time I want to land into my own humility.

The aircraft pulls up. It’s a tiny thing. It sounds rickety — and I LOVE that. Because it makes survival seem easy, nonchalant — not a thing to fuss over, or to fear.

Calmly, Sean goes over what’s about to happen. As he gives me instructions about my head and limb positioning when up on the air, he throws in a few metaphors:

“When we come to the edge, you kneel down on one knee, as if proposing to me. Rest your head on my shoulder. Wait for me to tap you like this; then bring your arms out at a ninety-degree angle — and enjoy the view!”

I imitate his movements. The thrill, the impatience, the anticipation makes me a terrible student though; because besides grinning, I don’t notice myself doing much else. But my bodyguard must know that already, because he continues with his metaphors.

“If you feel like you can’t breathe — scream!”

And this too! This too — must be a metaphor for something.

There are three other students besides me. Two of them start leading the way to the non-fussy aircraft, accompanied by their instructors who are still adjusting their gear, yanking on the belts, clicking the hinges. But mine is much cooler than that: He doesn’t fuss. Somehow, he’s managed to get geared up already and to check up on own my belts and hinges. And he has done his job with grace, without arousing any adrenaline in me.

I feel calm, yet impatient: I cannot wait to leap out into the sky — which must be the limit — and past my own limitations.

We are not even inside the plane yet, but already, I can hear the echos of Sean’s metaphors:

“When we come to the edge… kneel down as if proposing.”

“Rest your head… Wait.”

“If you can’t breath — scream!”

Inside the aircraft, the two students making the jump at 10,500 feet straddle the bench ahead of us. Their instructors start adjusting their belts again. The four of us sit behind them.

My bodyguard and I continue talking. Come to find out: He is a gypsy, just like me, traveling mostly in pursuit of conquering his fears. For eight years, he’s been leaping out into sky.

“You must be fearless!” I say.

“No,” Sean answers, calmly. “But this job — is a good metaphor for dealing with life.”

Underneath us, I can see the pretty geometric shapes of farmlands and fields that I have seen before out of the windows of other planes. Since a child, I had always wanted to leap out into the clouds, somehow knowing that there wouldn’t be anything to fear about that.

I turn to Sean: “How high are we?!”

I notice: I myself have started speaking in metaphors. Or, maybe, I have always done that. Which must be why I still find myself leaping out into the skies of my limitations — on my own. It must be hard to keep up.

“Six and a half,” my bodyguard answers and he shows me a watch-like device on this wrist with that number.

I grab it, meaning it, wanting to devour every bit of knowledge and skill that comes with leading a fearless life. Sean tells me that’s the exact height at which he’ll open our parachute.

I do the math. (My mind is clear, still unaffected by adrenaline.)

It means: We shall free fall for 7,000 feet.

Wow.

My gratitude — floods in.

Calmly, I watch the other two couples leap out at their heights. There is something very incredible in the way they make their final choice to go, letting the skies sweep them off the edge.

AND I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS. IT’S HUMBLING.

We keep going up to our height.

“In what order do you wanna go?” Sean asks me, over my shoulder: Somehow, he’s managed to have done his job again, and I am now sitting strapped onto his body, at my hips and shoulders.

“Let’s go first!” I answer, still grinning.

And still: I am calm. And still: I am impatient to jump out into the sky.

Soon enough, we start sliding onto the edge. When I put my goggles on, I hear the echo of Sean’s metaphor: He must’ve told me that it would be the last gesture we do — before leaping out. He’s amazing.

The four of us shake, slap, squeeze each other hands. I can feel the heat rising up behind my goggles:

THIS! THIS HUMILITY AND GRACE — THIS VERY HUMANITY — IS WHAT LIFE MUST BE ABOUT!

Sean slides the door up.

“Come to the edge.”

“Kneel.”

“Rest.”

“Breathe.”

I hear the echos. The heart — is on my tongue. I think: I’m screaming.

Maybe not.

We get swept off.

IT.

IS.

AMAZING.

When daydreaming about leaping out into the sky before, I used to think I would cry. I was wrong:

They wait for me at the agreed-upon intersections in San Francisco, at New York delis, or at coffee shops — when in LA-LA. Some hear me speeding by, in search of parking, while simultaneously texting them: “b there in a min.” They watch me march into a joint, with my hair pulled back. (Unless traveling long distances up the coast, with all the windows rolled down, I keep that mane tamed at all costs.) I walk into my rendezvous, smiling at the clerks and saying hello to strangers; then, I scan the room for my beloveds.

I see them and immediately move in for a hug:

“It’s been so long. So happy to see you. Ah.”

I wrap myself with their bodies: I am not big on personal spaces between beloveds.

And when that’s all done, I start dumping my loads onto the nearby chairs, peeling off my purses and sweaters. I’m the type of a broad who carries a first-aid kit at the bottom of her endless bag. A nail file. A pair of scissors. A tampon (always!). A dozen hairpins. And a sewing kit: Never know when you may need one. And you bet your sweet ass, I have a notebook somewhere in there, as well. I just have to look for it.

“Well, maybe I left it in the car.”

I don’t even own one of those dainty purses I see other girls carry on their forearms into clubs. Those things always make me wonder about the gap between the purpose they’re meant to represent and their actual functionality. It’s a metaphor gone awry. A promise meant to be disappointing.

But then again, the lesser the load — the lighter the female, right?

Perhaps. But I doubt it.

In my defense, with time — with age — I’ve gotten significantly lighter, it seems. It wasn’t a determined decision to drop the endless self-flagellation ceremonies of my 20s. Instead, they just sort of slipped out of my daily routines; giving room to more decisiveness or to very tired surrender. Having realized I’m merely an impossible debater to defeat, I stay out of arguments — with myself.

And so, I’ve gotten significantly lighter. And so have my baggages.

I flop into the chair, across from the face I have now loved for ages, and I let down my mane:

“Ah. Can I get you something to drink?”

It’s a habit that just won’t go away:

I examine the needs of my beloveds before I check up on my own.

But they’re fine. My people — are always fine. They are resilient. Strong and competent, never helpless. And even if they’re not fine — that’s fine too; because if ever they ask me for help, I never go telling on them. And neither do I ever mention it again.

“Seriously. Don’t mention it. My honor!” I say, as if threatening.

Love comes with no ties attached.

We begin to talk: A quick game of catching up with the lapsed time. A survival of our separations. If it were up to me, I would have all of my beloveds live with me in a commune: Some Victorian house balancing on a cliff above the ocean, with a menu of attics and basements, and hiding places for their selection. And at night, we would gather at a giant wooden table in the middle of an orchard, and we would search our oversized bags — and baggages — for nighttime stories and lovely fairytales about surrender.

But my people — are vagabonds and gypsies; and they go off to conquer their dreams, and to defeat their fears, on the way.

After enough is said to make me want to have a drink or to toast, I finally get up from the chair and start making my way to the counter, smiling at the clerk, again. In a couple of steps though, I look back, flip my mane and say:

“Sure you don’t want anything?”

Equipped with replenishing elixirs and an item in place of bread that we can break together, I come back to the table, rummage through my purse for a napkin and jumpstart the next round of storytelling. And I guarantee, most of the time, these are stories of broken loves and departed lovers.

But my people are fine, of course. They are resilient. Carefully, they process their losses; and they start dreaming of the next adventure. The next love. The next story.

“I’ll drink to that,” I say and tip my mane back while chugging down my drink.

When it’s my turn, however, my stories don’t come out with an obvious ending. Instead, they offer endless lessons and questions. For years, for decades, I have been known to mourn my lovers. I flip each story on its head; and as if yet another endless bag of mine, I rummage through it for details and conclusions.

And that’s when my comrades try to put an end to it:

“Don’t dwell on the past,” they say, and they go to the counter for a refill.

I don’t really know what that means:

None of my stories are ever put to rest. And neither are my loves.

Instead, they bounce around, at the bottom of my endless baggage, waiting to be pulled out the next time I am in the midst of rummaging for words. Which must be why I retell each tale so many times, committing it to my own memory and to the memory of my beloveds.

So, dwelling on the past: I don’t really mind that, as long as I don’t dwell in it. And in my defense, I have gotten lighter, with time, and with age. And so have my baggages.

Sometimes I read for inspiration, other times — to put myself to sleep. But mostly, I read out of my habit for empathy. Secretly, I cradle my hope that someone else, equally or more insane than me, has once felt my agonies and thrills before. And perhaps, that someone has been able to find the words for it all. But then again, maybe I just want to get myself disappointed, frustrated enough to start looking for the words on my own.

“Lemme do that!” I would think, and I leave the book by someone else unfinished, on my dresser; then, I start weaving my own stories.

It’s a trip, I tell you: Reading. Which is why I size up my books carefully before committing to them, with my time and my empathy; and with all of my expectations: I need to make sure they are exactly what I need at that moment in life.

Kind of like: Love.

Except that in love, I continue to commit that same mistake and I wait for the story to fit me perfectly, at that time in life. It doesn’t. Ever. Because a love story always involves another person and I am never too careful in sizing him up.

With books, I eventually forget about my initial expectations, and I get on with the journey they offer — if the adventure is worth my wandering, of course. But in love, I seem to forget about my side of the story — and I lose myself in his. So, the empathy gets lopsided and it limps around like a polio survivor; never remembering where exactly I had started losing track of myself. Until the eventual departure by one of the parties returns me to my memories — of love.

When you forgive — you love.

I stumbled across that in my memory, yesterday, as I stretched in between my naps on a sandy sheet at the beach, next to a man guilty of loving me better than he loves himself, with his lopsided empathy. Every time I looked over, he seemed to be asleep. And right past the curvature of his upper back, I could see a family of tourists doing their slightly quirky things underneath a colorful umbrella.

The woman looked lovely, but not really my type: She was a blonde, model-esque, calm and seemingly obedient. The little boy looked like her, with her pretty features minimized to fit his Little Prince face. He sat by himself, quietly imitating the things he imagined in the sand; and, like his mother, he never fussed for attention.

The older child — a 7-year old girl, in a straw hat — resembled her father:

He was tall, dark, Mediterranean, but not at all intimidating in his physicality. As a matter of fact, his body belonged to someone with an athletic youth that eventually gave room to the contentment of a well-fed, well-routined family life. By the way he lounged in his beach chair, I could tell he had plenty of theories on homemaking and childbearing; and that those theories — were the main means of his participation. Still, he wrapped up the picture of a complete union, so I changed my mind and dismissed him with a kind thought. Then, I resumed studying the little girl.

She was tall, Mediterranean; dressed in a blue-and-white, sailor striped dress. Lost in her stories, she wandered around her family’s resting ground until the wind would knock off her straw hat and send her running after it. On her balletic legs, the child would skip for a bit, then resume walking, very lady-like. The wind would pick up again and roll the hat for a few more meters, and again, the girl would begin skipping.

I could tell she was either humming or talking to herself. She’d catch up to the hat, put it on, start walking toward her family’s resting ground while humming, weaving her stories; until the wind would send her skipping again, after the hat two sizes too big for her, in the first place.

I looked at the man next to me: He seemed to be asleep.

“When you forgive — you love,” I stumbled across that in my memory, felt my legs get heavy with sleep, snuggled against the man guilty of loving me better than he loves himself — and drifted off into yet another nap.

When I woke up, the Little Prince had gotten a hold of his sister’s hat and tried wandering off on his wobbly legs, in search of his own stories. But the instructions from the father’s chair, put an end to that adventure quite quickly; so the boy returned to resurrecting the things he imagined — in the sand. In the mean time, the little girl was already skipping through waves, on her balletic legs, but still talking or humming to herself, while weaving her own stories.

There is a forgiveness that must happen, with time, toward the insanities of our families, in order to continue living with them. That I had known for a while; and past the forgiveness, I’ve benefited with more stories.

Then, there is the forgiveness of those who have failed to love us, with or without their lopsided empathies. Still, it must be done in order to arrive to new loves, to new empathies, and again — to new stories.

But the forgiveness of ourselves — for the sake of weaving a better story out of our own lives — that seems to be a much harder task. And it takes time. It takes a light open-mindedness of a child continuously running after her straw hat, seemingly never learning the lesson because the adventure itself — is worth the wandering.

And when the lesson is learned — forgiveness equals love — the story-weaving gets lighter. And so does the loving.

I never used to wait it out before. Instead I would leap in, head first, thinking:

“He is — so very beautiful. So: Why not?”

And it would be odd and sad, at the end of each affair (or, what’s more tragic, somewhere in the first chapter of it), to find myself disappointed — in myself. ‘Cause I’m a smart girl, you see? I always have been. (I mean: I read books, for Christ’s sake. Right?!)

But you know what my problem is? I like humanity too much. That, plus the dumb-bitch-ness of ignoring my own intuition — and I’ve got a decade of disappointing affairs.And no, I’m never disappointed in them: those I’ve chosen to fall for, head first, regardless of my screaming intuition. Instead, I’m always disappointed — in myself.

“But he is so very beautiful,” I think. And what’s worse, I used to say it sometimes, to his face. With years, I’ve reined in that messy situation a bit. ‘Cause I’m a smart girl, you see? So, now, I tend to whisper it instead, while he’s asleep on my chest like a babe relieved by a glorious burp after making a meal of my breast. I caress his hair — full, wispy or spiky, in a crewcut — and I get my pheromones going; convince myself I’m in love and I say it, out loud:

“You are so beautiful.”

Hopefully, he’s fully asleep by that point. And if not, most of the time, he pretends to be. How else to handle an intense number like me but to fake a hearing problem? Or a language barrier, of some sorts? The poor guy has just signed up for some sex — not for his fucking soulmate.

“That’s just the problem with you,” my ex has recently testified. “You make us believe we deserve you. But we don’t. We’ve got not business — fucking a girl like you.”

“Ah, I remember,” I thought to myself. “He always was — so very beautiful!”

I thought it, but made sure not to say it this time.

And it’s better with us now, anyway: Our friendship surfs upon our mutual goodness that’s no longer tested by sex. Still: So beautiful, I think; and I try to remember why he’s made me feel so disappointed — in myself — just a few years ago.

Another one got drunk at a party the other night, and instead giving a toast, like the man of the hour he’d insisted on being once he took over the barbecue grill, he raised his beer in my direction and he slurred:

“That woman!” He shook his head with spiky hair in a crewcut; then to our deadly silence, he wrapped it up: “THAT WOMAN.”

Later on, he wanted to walk me to my car.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No car walking,” I insisted and I patted the back of his head I’ve memorized on my chest, while he was pretending to be asleep, one night.

‘Cause I’m a smart girl, you see, and it’s only taken me six years and half a dozen of disappointed affairs in Los Angeles to figure out that “car walking” often stands for “foreplay”. And I just don’t foreplay with my exes. Sure, we can surf upon the goodness of our friendship soon enough; but sex with the exes — well, that’s just a totally dumb-bitch move.

But the familiarity of the touch was enough to get my pheromones going, and instead of a goodbye I said: “Thank you, beautiful.” And I left.

Lord knows, before I’ve walked out on every one of them — these men I’ve chosen to fall for, head first — I ask them for the final verdict:

“Now: Are you sure?” I say. “‘Cause I’m a smart girl, you see? Once I leave — I don’t come back.”

But the poor guys are so exhausted by that point, they don’t know what hit ‘em. I mean: They’ve just signed up for some sex, not for a fucking soulmate! And in that moment, they think they just want some silence. Or some solitude, for Christ’s sake! They think they want that empty linoleum floor without one intense number strutting toward them, for more matter-altering sex.

But in the end, they always lose the girl that has loved them in the best of ways: Fed ‘em, fucked ‘em, rubbed their heads, stroked their egos. In conclusion: Built ‘em up.

And surely, they move on, after me. They’re fine: They find other girls, better suitable, less intense. But by the time I go, I’ve raised their expectation so much — I’ve ruined them, for good. And they know it.

“You’ve gotta be careful,” one of them told me while still in the midst of our affair, but most likely, already looking for his way out. Sad: The poor guy has just signed up for some sex. Instead, he ended up waking up next to his soulmate: The first girl to never forsaken him, to fulfill his needs better than his mother and to raise his expectation, forever.

“You’re too trusting, you see.”

“Ah. So beautiful!” I said at the time, to his beautiful face; and I smirked in a way that made him change the subject and move in for more matter-altering sex.

And he was. He was very beautiful. And so were the others. So beautiful I don’t regret falling for any of them, head first.

There are days when the ego wakes up early on me, and like a petulant child nagging his mother for junk food in line at a supermarket, it gets going before I decide to open my eyes and admit to the start of a new day:

“But, but, but…” it whines, throws fits and manipulates itself into more convenient emotions — the junk food for the human spirit:

– Contempt: That one always promises to be easier; but so obvious its wastefulness, I haven’t tried my hand at it — EVER!

– Anger: A real dilettante, claiming its expertise when leading to solutions; but then, it always runs out of air on me, long before the finish line. Oh, but it has tempted me enough times to have learned my lesson, by now; so, I don’t follow its lead.

– Expectation of justice: I might as well resign to never allow another human to affect me, because such an expectation — is a moot point, fo’ sure; and it certainly cannot be an objective in any of my actions.

– Self-pity: I’m altogether allergic to that sucker, so I haven’t seen its face around here, for ages. Same goes for jealousy: In my universe, it’s a leper I prefer to keep at ten-foot distance.

But take this morning: I woke up tired.

“First of all: I am tired. I am true of heart!

And also: You are tired. You’re true of heart!” *

So, that must be a starting point, for most of us. A common ground, eh? Perhaps, that is why many prefer to be in love; for in those glorious beginnings of an affair, it gives you reasons to get up. Exhaustion does not seem to matter.

(The work? The work surely comes later. The ghosts come out to play:

“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man…”

The patterns play hide-and-go-seek for a while; but when the lovers lose their libido at trying to impress each other, the hidden qualities crawl out:

“You’re it!”

So, in comes the work.)

But take this morning: I woke up tired — and not in love, with another. For a while, I tossed my exhausted limbs in bed and dismissed the temptations of the ego to start weaving its through-line for this new day. I checked the phone: No visible commitments. Where to start, I thought.

How about: I start with gratitude?

So, I got up, mostly out of habit, got the coffee going. The first obvious choice of action — was to clear the space. I’m in control of it, this year — my space; but even that takes some discipline. Because I no longer can blame any outer — or inner — clutter on my bunkmate. My space equals my freedom equals my problem. My responsibility.

“It’s a question of discipline. When you’ve finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet.” **

And so, I did that, mostly out of habit, but secretly letting the faces of my beloveds slip into my memory. Perhaps, they were in the things that I shifted around my space. These things either tended to originate from all my loves or to lead me back to them, in unpredictable ways:

There was that one, on the furthest coast, who mattered the most — she was heard from, yesternight: She always justified my love. My brothers, scattered all over the continent because they are that much restless of a kind — they all came forth throughout the last few days. The lovelies in this city, where, for whatever reason, it’s much easier to get distracted: They too made their adoration for me audible.

And then, there was a boy: A boy from last night, who with his youth and beauty, insisted that even though I was tired — I was true of heart:

“I thought you were really cool,” he said, sitting underneath a yellow light on the floor of his hallway. “But I didn’t know you’d be so different.”

(He would later make me laugh, make me lighter; tease me, teach me; make me sit still — underneath the yellow light, on the floor of his hallway — while respecting my tiredness. He was not a love. Not yet. But oh, so lovely he was, in this city where, for whatever reason, it’s so much easier to get distracted. Perhaps, it was the late hour of the night… (Or was it the early hour of the morning? I never know the difference.) Perhaps it was the late hour of the night, but the mutual ghosts did not come to play:

“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man…”

But I was already too tired and true of heart — too wise, beyond my years — to not notice the patterns peeking out their turned-up noses from underneath the door of his apartment.)

But take this morning: I woke up tired, not in love with another, but slowly, seemingly in love — with so many. I continued to shift things around, organizing the space, getting ready to do my daily work. Slowly, the sleepiness evaporated. The exhaustion — suddenly didn’t matter.

I was loved, I thought, or at least adored — by many. And they were all so magnificent: These hearts, equally tired and true, searching for something just a little better than survival. And whenever they chose to remember me, they gave me reasons to get up. My tribe. My comrades. My witnesses. My better selves. They made me matter, rebuilding me every single time I was too tired to start a new day: